


When We Killed Monsters

by EskelChopChop



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aging, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Old man lambert, Witcher Contracts, adapting to a changing world, agency, outliving your intended purpose, the medieval fashion industry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28530132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EskelChopChop/pseuds/EskelChopChop
Summary: In the year 1397, nearly all of the Continent’s monsters have gone extinct. With nothing left to hunt, the last surviving witchers have retired from the Path. The world has forgotten them except for old songs and stories, and that’s the way Lambert prefers it.Then one day, someone enters his shop with an offer he hasn’t received in decades: a contract for a monster.
Relationships: Elihal & Lambert (The Witcher)
Comments: 58
Kudos: 86
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #03





	When We Killed Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 48-hour Witcher Quick Fic Challenge. Now that we're no longer anonymous, I wanna say that this was the first quickfic challenge I've ever participated in. So much fun with a group of enthusiastic, supportive writers. Was a (sometimes harrowing) joy writing frenetically with y'all!
> 
> CW: some mentions of gore.

Lady Dassene Chorbenne examined her bust in the fitting room mirror for the fourth time. Mustering his best impression of Elihal, Lambert averted his gaze and tried not to look like a man ready to set the gown on fire. 

It wasn’t the gown’s fault. Lambert had made it himself and the silhouette still made him smile. But it was clearly not meant for her. That color, that too-maidenly neckline, the overemphasis of her shoulders. Obviously it would be a disaster. Lambert had hinted at this many times, with the “delicate approach” that Elihal had tried to train into him for-- how long had it been? 

The elven master tailor had taken Lambert as an apprentice, oh, must’ve been thirty years ago… enough time for Lambert to discover that he wasn’t suited for life in the human military, not even a mercenary corps. He’d worked his ass off. More accurately, his fingertips. Elihal had taken him on as an employee. After Lambert’s line of embroidered doublets had taken off, Elihal made him an offer: open a new shop with him on the second-most fashionable avenue in Novigrad, cultural capital of the North. They’d operate as equal partners, masters of their trade.

It was the best decision that Lambert had ever made. Arguably, the only major decision he’d ever made for his own life. 

In fact, Lambert loved just about every aspect except this one: the clients. 

“Hm.” Lady Chorbenne tugged at the neckline that could not in any universe suit her.

The more he watched, the greater the urge to cast Igni. Lambert shifted his gaze to stare at his own face in the mirror instead. A positive: no more fashion torture. The negative: close examination of how damned old he looked. The top of his head long ago gone shiny and bald, the gray beard speckled only here and there with black, the deep wrinkles in his forehead. 

At least his expression stayed carefully neutral. Elihal owed him a medal. 

“The _dark_ green, you say?” she said. 

“Absolutely, ma’am,” Lambert said, instead of cursing. 

“And what is your reasoning?”

Lambert did not say: because you’ve got the stink of pickled beef and a boozehound’s ruddy complexion to match. Wear the light green, and you’ll look like a tomato that rolled off the cart. 

“Because light green is trite,” Lambert said. “Predictable. Cliche! You won’t catch anyone’s eye in light green.” 

“I beg your pardon,” Lady Chorbenne sniffed, “this is for the occasion of my daughter’s graduation from Oxenfurt as a master of the liberal arts. I’m happily married, sir.” 

“Fantastic. Think of it as hedging your bets.”

“Excuse me?”

A knock came at the fitting room door. “Lambert, darling? Would you happen to be in there with Lady Chorbenne?”

Lambert smiled. “Excuse me a moment. Hello, Elihal, yes, we’re hard at work in here. What’s up?”

The door opened. The maddeningly perfect architecture of Elihal’s face never altered as he looked from Lady Chorbenne to Lambert, but Lambert knew every quirk of the elf’s expression. That ever-so-subtle dip of the left eyebrow, a line around his mouth that was harder than usual: this was Elihal’s _you’ve started some shit with the customers, haven’t you_ look.

“Dassene, darling!” Elihal beamed. “I wasn’t aware you were here.” 

“Ah, yes, well.” The lady’s eyes flicked from Elihal to Lambert and back again.

“My deep apologies for my lateness.” Elihal drifted into the room with that modest elven grace of his. “Lambert, there’s a gentleman who’d like to speak with you. Go on, I’ll take over from here.” 

“A gentleman.” Not client or customer. Lambert tilted his head half an inch to the left. Elihal’s only reply was a quick flick of his eyes toward the door. “Right. Guess I’m due for a chat. Remember, Dassene.” Lambert tapped his hand twice on the doorframe. “Dark green!”

“Thank you so much, my friend,” Elihal said sharply.

Lambert smiled dazzlingly and left the fitting room with a jaunty step. 

In the main room of the shop, a man stood leaning over to peer at Lambert’s latest doublet, the one with the experimental bronze thread. Lambert inhaled; old habit. The man smelled most strongly of horse and lavender cologne, something expensive. 

“Welcome,” Lambert said. 

The man turned. Lean, early forties, dressed upscale practical. Nice boots but well-worn. Armed but not for show. The man’s smile faltered when he saw Lambert’s eyes. “Oh,” he said. 

Lambert crossed his arms over his chest. “I know. Stunningly handsome, right?”

The man showed the usual reaction: the flustered chuckle, the unspoken gratitude for giving him an out. “Yes! Ah, yes, for a moment I forgot where I was,” the man stammered. “Apologies. I’ve never…”

“...seen a witcher,” Lambert finished. “Yup. You’d be surprised how much I get that.”

The visitor did not seem at all surprised. “I mean. You hear stories, right? From grandmothers and drunk old men, but. They’re all so wild...” The man laughed to himself. “I’m sorry. This is terribly awkward.”

“Dunno what you mean. I’m feeling great.”

The man flushed. “Ah, well. That’s. Splendid. I was actually sent to find you. The man gave a little bow. “Stijn of Farhaven, in the service of the Lord and Lady Gatadar. You would be Lambert of Novigrad?”

“These days? Sure. Gatadar. They the ones with that big estate out east?”

“The very same, sir.”

“Huh.” Lambert leaned back against the counter. “I would say I’m honored, but it’s been a long morning. I can’t fake it unless dinner’s involved. What do you need, Stijn? Your bosses need some gloves? A new hat?” 

“A larger service, I’m afraid. We’ve had some trouble on the estate recently. My employers have done all they can to resolve the issue, but it’s proven… tenacious. So they’re seeking a more drastic measure. They say the time has come to find a witcher.” He gave a smile that looked apologetic. “If such people still exist.”

Lambert stared at him.

Stijn swallowed. “We’ve been told that’s what you are, sir. A witcher.”

“Was,” Lambert said at last. 

Stijin smiled, a frail little hope in that expression that brought back memories Lambert didn’t want to recall. “It is true, then? You are a monster slayer. Or you were.”

Lambert twitched his head like a horse shaking off a fly. “Are you telling me the Gatadars are having monster trouble?”

The messenger took a deep breath. “If it is a beast, it is no beast we have seen or heard of before.” He paused. “The stories say that witchers work for pay. Is that true, too?”

Lambert scratched his fingers through his beard. Past the fitting room door, he could hear Lady Corbenne asking about necklines. 

“It is,” Lambert said. 

“Lord Gatabar is ready to pay you.”

Just like the old days. Just like nothing had changed. 

“Stijn,” Lambert said after a long pause. “We’re basically friends now. How old do you think I am?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Me either. That’s what happens when you get taken as a little kid, and the shitheels who raise you expect you to die before you get short and curlies. No point in getting attached, right?”

Stijn stared at him. It wasn’t a stare of _my gods, how could such cruelty in the world exist_ but a stare of incomprehension. Lambert kept forgetting. People didn’t know much about witchers anymore, even less than they once had. No one remembered how witchers were made.

Lambert shook his head. “Point is,” he said, lowering his voice, “I’ve been around a while. The last time I got hired for witcher’s work, you weren’t alive yet. And it was for gods damned drowners.” More blank incomprehension. “You don’t even know what a drowner is, do you? Damn it. Fucking _youths_.”

“I don’t know what any of that means.”

Lambert sighed. “I’m saying there aren’t any monsters left.”

“It seems there may still be one.”

“What makes you so sure? Somebody have a nightmare? Did all the milk in the house curdle?”

“No, sir. The bodies.”

“Bodies,” Lambert said. The moment the word formed in his mouth, he knew. Witcher’s work didn’t start with bad dreams, ominous wailings outside of windows at midnight, or anything his clients had idly mentioned over the past decades. It began with a corpse. 

Lambert let out a long breath. 

“You shouldn’t’ve come to me,” he said. “Go bother Eskel. He still wears his medallion, for gods’ sake. ...his medallion, you know. His witcher’s-- Do you even know what…? Gods damn it.”

“You are the only witcher that we’ve ever heard of. This Eskel, is he close?”

“No. He’s two weeks east if you ride like you mean it and the weather’s good.” 

Lambert ran a hand down his face. A corpse. Then a contract, an investigation, and, usually, a fight that ended with another corpse. The steps came to him like muscle memory. When was the last time that Lambert had followed them, had felt that adrenaline spike of life and death balanced on a silver blade?

“Fine. Stijn, say whatever you’ve come to say. Tell me about this monster that’s been hiding for fifty years.”

Stijn did, and something old rose up in Lambert’s mind-- the part of him that could hear about death with cold calculation and compare it to thousand deaths he’d seen before. It was cold and familiar. He’d forgotten what this felt like. 

Oh yeah: he hated it.

*

Trouble was, Lambert couldn’t turn it off. 

It was late. They’d locked the front door, and there was only darkness outside the windows. 

The burble of Elihal’s voice paused. “Mm hm,” Lambert hummed.

Ten woodcutters dead in three weeks, Stijn had said. All killed after crossing a border that the former villagers had clearly marked. Something territorial, then. And old. No animal tracks, according to Gatadar’s errand boy, but folk had said that even in the old days when they believed in monsters and knew to look for them. After the string of deaths, Lord Gatadar had sent in armed men. Only one of them had lived, but he’d fled the estate that night and never come back. 

Yeah, it sounded like a monster. Why did it have to wake up now, when the callouses on Lambert’s palms had faded to smooth soft skin?

Elihal paused again. “Totally agree,” Lambert said automatically.

Elilhal scoffed. 

“What?”

“Lammy dearest, you haven’t heard a single word I’ve said. Have you?”

Lambert looked up from the stool they used when they took up hems. Elihal leaned against the counter that Lambert had leaned against hours ago, listening to Stijn. Elihal’s smile was soft and long-suffering. 

“...no,” Lambert admitted.

“You’re thinking about that courier, aren’t you. That witcher contract.”

“It’s not a contract.” Lambert looked down at his own folded hands. “They didn’t even know to write up a contract. What was the plan? That I’d go into a berserk killing frenzy at the mention of a monster?”

“Well, you can hardly blame them. They’re _dh’oine_. None of them were alive when someone hammered the last witcher contract into some town notice board.”

“That’s just it. This…” Lambert flattened his palm against his forehead. “Fuck this. Fuck this shit, I swear to the gods.”

“Now, now, Lammy dear.”

“Shut up. It’s just. I was out. It was over. _Witchers_ were over. I never wanted it, and it was finally fucking done.”

Elihal lowered his gaze. 

“You know. You don’t have to take the contract,” Elihal said softly. “You mentioned your brother? Eskel? Perhaps it’s best if you didn’t do this.”

Lambert’s fingers curled into the bones of his own hands. 

“Hey, Elihal. Wanna know something fun?”

Elihal raised a doubtful eyebrow. “The last time you asked me that question, guards started chasing us.”

“Oh yeah. This one’s not as good, sorry.” Lambert felt his viper eyes dilating in the dimness of the shop. Maybe they looked human. “Did you know that Lady Dassene Chorbenne is having an affair with Lord Zithramar’s nephew?”

Elihal smiled. “I underestimated you, darling. Here I thought you did nothing but alienate our dear Dassene today but you had her gossiping away.”

“No, you're right. I alienated the shit out of her. But I also smelled his cologne on her dress.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. You know how young men pour their scent on.”

Lambert allowed himself a lascivious grin. “Smelled something else, too. Let’s just say they didn’t take a bath this morning.”

Elihal held up an airy hand. “Please, no more. Mind my delicate sensibilities.”

“Know what else? Lord Chorbenne knows. His heart skips a beat whenever Zithramar’s name comes up.”

Elihal smiled. “What an impressive spy you’d make.”

“Nope. Would be shit at it. I know all this because they made me this way. This hearing, this smell. For what? All the monsters are dead.”

Stijn’s reply came back to him: there was at least one monster left. And that brought the rest back, too: The cold. The long days on horseback and lonely nights in the wild. The stink of blood and sweat-caked armor and road mud that never came out. The Path that he’d been made for, would’ve died for if the monsters hadn’t died out first.

“Fuck,” Lambert tried to growl, but his voice cracked instead. 

The silence wasn’t silence. Lambert heard the beating of Elihal’s heart, the sputter of the candle flame, the footsteps of young people outside who thought no one ever saw them going down to the riverside. 

“I’m sorry,” Elihal whispered. “But. Perhaps it’s a godsend.”

“Yeah? Some kind of god.”

“A god of finances, perhaps. Or lucky windfalls. Think of this as a way to make up for the customers you scare off.”

“Scare off?” Lambert flashed a grin that he knew showed too much of his teeth. “Clients love me. Especially the cat-lovers.” He tapped his cheek, near his eyes. “They all trust me to be honest.”

“Not a single word of that sentence is true.” 

“Lady Pulkrov loves me.”

“Lady Pulkrov is a lonely widow with a fetish for exotic men. She hardly counts.”

“Tell that to the five hundred paldren she dropped on that gown.” 

“Yes, alright,” Elihal sighed. 

Lambert blew his breath between his lips. 

“Haven’t even used a sword in years,” he grumbled at last.

“Do you remember which part to use?”

“Do you remember which part of my ass to kiss?”

Elihal tutted. “Oh, you shameless _vatt’ghern_. Besides, from what I recall of that particular night, our positions were quite different.”

“That was a good time. Why didn’t we try that again?”

Elihal plucked at one of the folds in his dress. “There are some things you should not tell a lady. Including unpleasant comparisons of her smell.”

Lambert spread his hands. “Hey. I can’t help it. It’s the mutations.” 

“Oh yes, your witcher mutations. Poor Lammy. Did the mutations make you call me, what was the phrase… _saltier than water hag bile_?”

Lambert stood up. “Well, gotta go. Innocents to save and all that.

Elihal smiled sweetly and let it go. “Good luck on the Path, darling. And do come back intact. Lady Pulkrov would be so out of sorts.”

Lambert grinned as he unlocked the shop’s door and walked out. Elihal’s voice still hung in his mind, though.

_Good luck on the Path._

It had been a long time since he’d heard that phrase. He wished he hated hearing it again.

*

In the morning, Lambert brought it all out.

First came the armor that he’d barely worn for the past twenty years. Even then, it wasn’t meant for work-- he wore it in case those highway robbers, unchanged in all of these decades, got desperate enough. It was lightweight leather and wouldn’t offer much protection against, say, a werewolf’s claws or a fiend’s charge, but he wasn’t about to bankrupt them both for a new set. Besides, he still had Quen, right?

Next came the swords. These were in better shape. He still took them out and sharpened and polished them. The instructors at Kaer Morhen had beat the habit into him enough times. The leather of the sword strap could have used some oiling, but Lambert found that when he reached up and behind him, his hand still knew how to find the right hilt. 

Then the potions. No one had seen the monster, so it could be almost anything. He’d have to pay a visit to the herbalist before leaving town. In the meantime, he had his travel still, untouched for decades, and a hefty measure of vodka. 

When he left Kaer Morhen each spring, Lambert had always packed plenty of bombs. It had been a long time since he kept any explosives, didn’t know where to get them anymore. He’d do without.

Lastly…

Lambert knew where he kept the last item-- the bottom left corner of the heavy chest up in the loft. He sat kneeling before the chest for some time. 

His left knee cracked as he shifted his weight. Ow. How had he kept that position for hours during meditation? 

Waiting made it worse. In a rush of sudden motion, Lambert threw open the chest and rooted through the items whose very smell brought back years he didn’t want to remember. There: the black velvet pouch, its folds spiky with the item it enfolded. 

He upended the pouch, shook it until the heavy weight of silver fell into his palm and the chain, now dull with tarnish, spilled through his fingers. A wolf’s head medallion snarled up at him. 

“I’m not happy to see you either, buddy,” Lambert muttered. “But. Wouldn’t it be good if one single, shitty thing about this whole shit buffet was our choice?”

The wolf’s head didn’t answer.

Lambert pulled the chain over his head, felt the silver wolf’s head medallion fall flat against his chest with a heft that his muscle memory recognized. 

“Alright,” Lambert muttered to the chest full of old bestiaries, the trophies and dessicated monster claws, the cracked old parchments describing contracts that for some reason or another he’d wanted to remember, a faded hat that hadn’t been fashionable in centuries. “One last time.”

He slammed the chest shut. 

*

“My gods.” Lord Gatadar leaned forward across his desk with an eager smile. “Do you know-- I always thought it was a silly invention, what the stories said about witchers’ eyes?”

Lambert felt his pupils shrink to slits. “They are,” he said. “I had mine made special because I liked the look.”

Lord Gatadar raised his eyebrow and for a moment, Lambert couldn’t help but see Lord Zithamar’s face. They all moved alike. “Really?”

Lambert slouched back in his chair and flashed the smile he used when he wanted to show his too-long teeth. “Sure. So Errand Boy Stijn told me about your trouble. Something hungry in the woods, huh?”

A crease wrinkled the lord’s lordly eyebrow. “Mm. Yes. It’s been rather vexing.”

“Yeah, vexing. Ten men dead, not counting the soldiers. I bet that vexes.” Lambert shrugged off the imagined sound of Elihal’s disapproving voice. “Got any bodies for me to look at?”

“I’m afraid not. Seven of them disappeared, or… were only partially recovered. Those we did find, we allowed the families to bury.”

“Mm hm. ‘Kay.” This felt more and more familiar, despite the decades since Lambert’s last contract and the swords that weighed more heavily than he remembered. “Have those woods ever _vexed_ you before this?”

The lord favored him with the hint of a sneer. “No,” he said, ice creeping into his tone. “There were peasant superstitions, of course. Warnings not to enter the forest after dusk, and never alone, and never to go further than the wards.”

“Wards?”

“Figures they’ve made, out of sticks and threads. They hang them from the trees at intervals-- to mark the boundary that one should not cross.” The lord shook his majestic all-knowing head. 

Lambert’s nostrils flared. “Those backwards peasants.”

“Yes,” the lord said, oblivious to his sarcasm. “But there were no deaths. Now we’ve plans to expand the estate-- more grain to sustain the war effort, you understand.”

Another war? Had he heard about this one? Lambert lost track long ago. “Right. An army marches on its stomach and all that.”

“Quite right.” A flicker of approval crept into those lordly human eyes. “So we transferred the village to other lands and made plans to develop the forest. Only, the woodcutters are… The word ‘culled’ comes to mind. They are being culled.”

“Hm. So the deaths aren’t random.”

The lord hesitated. “No. They are predictable. If we send men far beyond the wards, they do not return.”

“If you knew that, then why’d you send them out?”

“There are--” The lord collects himself. “There are limited explanations for disappearances in my experience. Yours must differ, Master Witcher. If that is indeed what you are.”

“Yes,” Lambert said, the word as instinctive as the force behind it. 

“Very well, then.” Lord Gatadar cleared his throat. “How do we proceed?”

“There’s usually a contract. You tell me how much you’re willing to pay to kill your pest. Whatever it is. By the sounds of it-- this one’s big.”

“Hm. Well. We certainly want to be rid of it. Two thousand paldren-- is that a fair fee?”

Lambert kept his face neutral. As always, it was a valuable skill. Two thousand, his mind sang. He and Elihal could take that trip to Touissant that Elihal was always sighing about, buy some fabric, see how the great white blowhard was doing. “Make it two thousand five hundred,” he said. “For expenses.”

“Expenses?”

“Rare herbs. Need ‘em for witcher potions.” 

The lord’s jaw tightened. “Two thousand three hundred, and we will help restore your inventory of precious herbs if required.”

Lambert crossed his arms as if considering. “Alright,” he said after a pause that was dramatic without overdoing it. “Bring you the pest’s head as proof when it’s over.”

“Oh, no.”

“No?”

Lord Gatadar rummaged through a drawer and handed something heavy and metal to Lambert. Lambert took it, ran his fingers around the smooth surface. Tarnished, but intact. Still nigh unbreakable. He knew it by the feeling like cold in his fingertips and in the brush of the wolf’s head across the skin of his chest.

“Dimeritium,” Lambert said. “Where did you get this?”

“A family heirloom.” The lord looked pleased as he folded his hands together, elbows on the desk. “I heard stories that this would be used to tame witches and other… wild things. I never believed they were true. But then, I didn’t believe in witchers, either.” He bobbed his hand at Lambert. 

“So you don’t want me to kill it.”

Lord Gatadar gave a slow lordly shake of his head, heavy with the world’s grief. “It is a remnant of a lost world in those woods. Once we tame it, it would be-- educational to share with the king’s menagerie. He has a fondness for such relics.” The lord raised his imperious eyebrows. “Surely you can feel some nostalgia for that history?”

“History,” Lambert choked. 

The lord watched him laugh until he got a hold of himself. 

“Okay.” Lambert covered his smile with his hand. “I’ll, uh. Try to catch this critter for you. But if it comes down to its neck or mine, I’m killing it.”

“I would consider that outcome suboptimal.”

“Yeah? How about me dying and you having to dig another witcher out of retirement-- how’s that rank on your scale? ‘Sub-suboptimal’ or closer to ‘vexing’?”

The lord exhaled. “Fine. If you absolutely must… kill it. But only then.” 

Some new thought entered the lord’s eyes. Some instinct told Lambert to brace himself. “I don’t suppose,” Gatadar said, “that you’ve entertained the thought of exhibitions?”

“Exhibitions. Sorry, I don’t follow.”

“You are a member of a most rare species now. A specimen of living history. Many would leap at the chance to meet you.”

The dimeritium collar tingled in Lambert’s hand. He wondered now whose neck Lord Gatadar wanted it around, who he really imagined in a king’s menagerie. 

Lambert straightened. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll have my social secretary get back to you. Now show me where you found the bodies.”

*

Lord Gatadar remained in his office. Instead a man with broad shoulders, stone-hard forearms with visibly rippling veins, and a scent of sawdust introduced himself as Nils and led Lambert outside, where stumps and woodchips gave way to the edge of the woods. Some stumps looked like broken pillars. Primeval forest here, where the trees had been left to grow thick and wild. 

“Right through there.” Nils nodded his head at an opening in the trees. “Found Dol with most of his guts missing. He’d crawled his way out of the woods.”

Lambert whistled. “Guy had guts to spare.”

Lambert turned to find Nils looking at him. Not that look of disgust and suspicion from the old days, or even distaste for the pun that, Lambert had to admit, wasn’t his finest. It was an appraising look.

“He did,” Nils said slowly. “Always putting in extra hours. He was engaged, see. Saving up. Wanted to buy a new shirt to get married in.”

“Well, now he can get buried in it.”

Nils snorted. “No good wasting coin on the dead. The families had to pitch together for a group pyre. Did you know that? Town baker donated bread for the funeral feast, for pity’s sake.”

“And let me guess. Lord Gatadar suddenly found his pockets empty.”

“Lord Gatadar gave shit all. Not a single fuck, not a single coin.” Nils spat. “Wouldn’t even give us time off for the funerals.”

“Bastards still being bastards. And they say the world’s changed.”

“Can you kill it?” Nils’ eyes sharpened. “The thing what did in our boys?”

“I’d bet on me.” 

“Hrrm.”

Lambert cocked an eyebrow. “What?” 

“They sent in a group of seven last week. With guns, crossbows, _and_ blades.”

“Guns.” Lambert shook his head. He’d seen them, like toys from an alchemist’s mushroom dreams. Unwieldy, sulfur-smelling junk. “And you’re wondering, if they couldn’t kill it, why would Lord Shitheel send for me...”

“An old man with a sword,” Nils finished.

Lambert raised his eyebrows. “Old man, huh.” When Nils didn’t even blink, Lambert grinned. “How about a bet, Nils? When I come back here with the critter’s head, you buy this old man a drink.”

Nils returned the grin. “That’s a good bet. I like gambling when I know I’ll win.” 

“Ha. I like proving fools wrong. Now fuck off, whippersnapper. Old man’s got work to do.”

Nils moved off with a grin. What a sarcastic shitheel. Lambert looked forward to that drink.

For now, though: work.

Lambert had almost forgotten how. He squinted at the trees and they weren’t clues or evidence. They were just fucking trees. 

Nothing like living on the outskirts of a city for decades. Dulling his senses had become a survival technique.

He let that go now, let the scent of the forest seep into him until the simple dull smell opened into complexity, became the lightness of oak, the sweetness of maple, pinecones, black walnut, rotting wood, mushrooms, wet earth, dead leaves, each scent re-remembered and coming back to him like a long-neglected friend. 

And there, there-- the old iron-scent, fetid now. A scent-trail of blood. 

It was like he’d never left the Path… except his knees twinged, his shoulders bowed under the now-unfamiliar weight of the sword strap, and his armor wouldn’t protect against a determined kitten. 

Home sweet fucking home. 

Just like the old days, Lambert followed the trail, spotted the gouges in the earth that led to jagged marks in tree trunks, and those led to a tangled nest of roots that ended in vicious spikes, their tips still stained dark. 

_So logically,_ a familiar voice said in the back of his head, _we can deduce the presence of… which monster, Lambert?_

Lambert frowned at the twisted roots even as he automatically thought the answer: a leshen. An old one, by the looks of this forest. _And get out of my head. Only room for one old man in here._

As Lambert headed back toward Gatadar’s estate, already mentally listing the steps to make the potion and sword oil, he wondered if it was too late to cancel that bet with Nils. 

*

Lambert hefted the sword in his hand. The blade flashed silver, not a speck on it. The fatty stench of relict oil hung in its wake. 

_Before battle, center yourself. A distracted witcher is a--_

“I thought I told you to fuck off,” Lambert muttered aloud. 

Besides, he’d already tried to meditate. It hadn’t been easy for him even back when. Now his mind jumped at every little thought: the sound of the breeze in the trees, the thought of Elihal running the shop alone, the faint snap when he rolled his right shoulder without stretching. 

So, no meditation. A draught of Petri’s Philter was his last piece of prepwork. It tasted just as foul as he remembered, which was a good omen. 

Prep done. 

Lambert whirled the blade through the air just to hear it sing. It was heavier than he remembered but at least his shoulder didn’t pop. 

“Alright,” he muttered to no one, and he stalked into the woods. 

The trammeled ground of the woodcutters fell behind him. The wards, too, those simple figures of sticks and rope that rotated slowly as they hung suspended from the branches. No birds, no small woodland creatures scampering through the underbrush. Silence except for his own heartbeat and his footsteps in the leaves. 

“This could’ve been Eskel.” Now he did sound like a crazy old man, muttering to himself in the woods. “But noooo. Had to come to my door. Hope one of your goats butts you in the ribs, buddy.” 

Wood creaked. Lambert peered up. Overhead, two thin trees scraped together in the breeze. 

“Then I hope that goat eats your shirt, you cozy bastard,” Lambert muttered. “And shits it out on your shoe.” 

He smelled moss, leaves, dirt, running water, creek mud, sharp pine, sweet sap. Heard his own breath, the bending of leather as his hand tightened around his sword hilt, the distant harsh calls of--

Ravens.

Lambert signed Quen as the first black wings exploded through the leaves. There were tens of them, dozens, descending in a black-feathered fury. Their beaks scraped against the gold shield as they flurried past. He wheeled to track their flight. They swarmed together like insects collecting into a black cloud until the shape of them grew solid, became bone and antler in a nightmare of mossy shoulders, gnarled midsection, and spindly limbs that ended in jagged claws. Black smoke curled about the new form, a skeleton of bone and wood whose wide antlers brushed the leaves dangling from above. 

The leshen towered above him. It was king here, old and pitiless as these woods. The empty skull tilted toward him. 

Lambert’s medallion quivered on his chest in useless warning. 

“Shit,” he hissed. 

Something deep thrummed low as if the earth itself growled. The bone-white and moss-green claws sank into the dirt.

“Shit!” 

Lambert threw himself aside just in time. The spot where he’d been standing erupted in an explosion of pointed roots. Bits of dirt flecked the gold of his Quen and stuck there. 

He thought of the dimeritium collar. Ha. Yeah, fuck that. 

A chorus of squawks sounded somewhere above him and he dodged again, ducking the stream of ravens that swerved close enough to make the underbrush next to him ripple. He was supposed to kill that thing? It was like trying to kill a mountain when the mountain was actively trying to kill you. 

Lambert spun behind a tree trunk, tried to catch his breath. That thing was huge. He needed a plan. 

The leshen’s massive antlers loomed into view. Lambert leapt up and the Igni sign seemed to launch itself from his palm. He could feel the Philter in his veins leap tingling and chaotic into his hand and flames burst forth in a fury of yellow heat. But the leshen wasn’t there. Instead there was a whirl of black smoke and raven wings. They descended on him with a rush of claws and ripping beaks. 

Lambert felt himself moving, followed the blur of his own body as it pivoted and dodged aside as if he had planned it that way. It was like something faster in the back of his mind controlling him, making him whirl and bend before he even knew there was something to dodge. He recognized it. All those years of domesticated city life, and he’d forgotten what he was, what they’d made him to be: a beast as primal as the leshen. 

He let himself narrow to threat, escape, attack, the instinct to kill or be killed, became a pour of deadly motion. Every part of him dedicated to lethal use. The leshen bared its claws; Lambert bared his teeth. The leshen lowered its deer skull head and charged; Lambert’s viper eyes narrowed to slits and the knowing animal of his body leapt aside, already channeling the motion into a slash of the silver blade. The two ancient killers dodged and charged, whirled and pivoted with monstrous grace. 

A moment came when Lambert knew where he had to be. Some unthinking part of him had done the calculations, had no time to explain. So he followed the choreography set out for him. He raised his blade high, telegraphing the slash. The leshen vanished in a cloud of smoke and wings and Lambert kept turning, ran forward to the place where the smoke had just begun to coalesce.

Igni blazed from his palm and the leshen appeared in the hottest stream of the inferno. The skull lifted and a terrible cry sounded from its chest, a bugle, a bellow, ancient as the dirt they fought on. The beast in Lambert recognized it and bared his inhuman teeth. Whatever sound that came out of him then must have been as wild and shapeless as the leshen’s call, but he couldn’t hear it. 

The leshen crumpled. The Igni blast had eaten away the gnarled length of its legs. Lambert felt his sword arm rise. 

History, the lord had said. Nostalgia. Relics. 

The silver blade flashed, met resistance, and cut through. 

*

Lord Gatadar frowned at the misshapen pile of bone, wood, and dirt on his desk. “What is this, exactly?”

“Your monster,” Lambert said. “That is, your monster’s head.”

The lord turned his head this way and that. “That is an elk skull.”

“Wrong. It’s a leshen. Ancient leshen, actually. The really fun kind.” He thunked the dimeritium collar on the unoccupied corner of the lord’s desk. “Didn’t get a chance to use this. Sorry.”

The lord hadn’t looked away from the skull. “A leshy. A real leshy? They’re from fairy stories.”

“So are witchers.”

“My gods.” Lord Gatadar ran a finger down his own jawline. He was starting to smile. “Incredible. Yes. I see. What a fascinating specimen. I know a professor who would dearly love to examine this.”

“Sorry. Head’s coming with me. I just brought it here so you could see proof.”

Gatadar frowned. “What?”

“Witcher’s code,” Lambert said. “We keep what we kill. Everyone knows it. Used to. Anyway, I’ll take my money now.”

“I’ll pay extra for the head.”

“Can’t part a witcher from his trophy. Don’t they put that in the songs anymore?”

Lord Gatadar sat back with an expression somewhere between exasperation and bemusement. “Truly, your witcher culture is fascinating.”

“Yours, too.” 

Lord Gatadar’s eyebrows dipped at the sharpness in Lambert’s tone. He plunked a coin purse on his desk in the loop of the dimeritium collar. “Well. It has been an honor meeting you, Master Lambert.”

Lambert opened the coin pouch and peered inside. “This doesn’t look like two thousand three hundred.”

“It isn’t. That price was for the capture of a live specimen. And now you tell me that even a dead specimen is unavailable to me.” The lord shook his head, as if pitying Lambert his own foolishness. “This is the price for ridding us of the beast, albeit in a… suboptimal manner.”

Lambert glanced around the office. Slow afternoon, nobody around, and he never planned to come back here again. 

The lord tensed when he saw Lambert raise his hand. That lasted until the Axii sign took effect a moment later.

“Give me the rest of our agreed-upon price,” Lambert said.

“Yes…” The lord reached into a desk drawer, eyes blank, jaw slack as he counted out money. Lambert wasn’t keeping track. When the lord stopped counting, he slid the coins from the desk into his new coin purse. Lambert lifted the leshen skull off the desk by one of the tines. Lord Gatadar continued staring at nothing.

Lambert turned to go, then turned back. “And another thing. Take out some parchment and order your, I don’t know, clerks or stewards or whoever handles your money to pay six months’ wages to the families of the dead woodcutters. Give those orders right away.”

“Yes…” the lord said again, hands mechanically fetching parchment and a quill despite the clods of moss and dirt still sitting on the desk. 

“Good.” Lambert watched him for a moment. “Do that. And when you’re finished, go fuck yourself.”

Lambert left Gatadar’s office. The first staff member he saw was a maid in the midst of dusting one of Gatadar’s many gaudy side tables. 

“Hey, do me a favor,” he said.

The maid looked up at him. When she saw his eyes, her hands flew to her mouth with a gasp. “Oh-- oh my--”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a witcher, scary.” Lambert glanced back at the office door. “Do you, uh. You know if Nils is around?”

“Nils…?”

“Yeah, the woodcutter. Brown hair, about yay tall. Seems like a son of a bitch, but the fun kind?”

“Y-yes… um, I … yes, I know Nils…”

“Great. When you see him, tell him he owes me a drink.”

“I, ah…” The maid nodded rapidly for lack of words. 

“Thanks. I’ll see myself out. Enjoy your monster-free day.” 

Lambert was about a mile down the road when it occurred to him to wonder how literal the lord might have taken his last “request” under the influence of Axii. He came to a halt in the middle of the road, ignoring the peasants who had halted their harvesting to stare at the old man who wore two swords and carried a massive not-quite-deer head. 

“Oops,” he muttered. He happened to glance toward the fields, saw the stares, gave a friendly wave. Everyone returned to their farmwork with renewed vigor. 

People these days. 

The head was heavy, though. A mile later, Lambert stopped at the roadside shrine. These hadn’t changed much over the years: still the same wooden shrines, the candles, the offerings, the carved arms reaching out to the onlooker in a gesture of mercy. 

Lambert grabbed the two sides of the leshen skull’s antlers and lugged it into place, settling it on the ground so it rested with the other offerings. It also resembled some kind of gargoyle staring balefully out from the goddess’ side. Not a bad effect, really. It inspired respect. 

Lambert dropped to a crouch and let himself breathe. Damn, that thing was heavy. Carrying a trophy around had been a lot easier back when he owned a horse. 

Once his breath had become slow and easy, he reached up for the silver chain around his neck and lifted it over his head. For a moment he stared down at the wolf’s head medallion, weighed it in palm, closed his hand enough so the silver spikes bit into the meat of his thumb. 

It was harder than he thought it would be, draping the chain over the leshen’s antlers and leaving the wolf’s head to dangle. 

“There,” Lambert said to the fallen forest king and his silver trophy. “Now we’re both fossils.” 

He stood a moment, not moving. The goddess carved of wood still smiled down, still stretching her arms to all in need of blessing. 

Lambert turned and continued his walk down the road. The way was much easier without the weight of the leshen head. If he kept up this pace, he’d reach Novigrad before sunset. He’d heft the coin in his palm, wait to tell Elihal in the morning. Lady Pulkrov needed her gown in two days’ time. That meant tonight, Lambert would sit by the fire to sew. He’d sew tonight, tomorrow, the days and weeks after that, dedicating his nights to the making of beautiful, useless things that would never see blood.

Like hats. They hadn’t tried making a hat with that new bronze thread yet. There was an idea. 

Lambert smiled. He lifted his face to the sky and whistled a tune up to the birds. It seemed to his mind that some of them sang back.


End file.
